Three Witches
by aisobel
Summary: Mary Collins, Morgana, Nimueh - a snippet for each.


**Title:** Three Witches  
**Rating:** G  
**Characters:** Mary Collins, Morgana, Nimueh  
**Spoilers:** none  
**Word count:** 729  
**A/N:** spell checked, but unbetaed  
**Summary:** a snippet for each

I.

Mary Collin's son didn't make friends easily. He was a plump, awkward boy, too smart and ambitious to tag along, but not smart (or charismatic) enough to lead. So when he came to her all running nose and big eyes, and begged her to heal a girl, Mary said, "A girl, you say? We'll see."

Mary didn't heal anyone unless they could pay for it, and their current situation required prudence. She was a widower newly arrived in town. She couldn't afford to just offer her services to any common John without getting a hang on how the place and its people worked. Whose tongue could and couldn't be trusted.

She payed a visit to the girl's house anyway. And she watched. What she saw was a very modest house, run by a distraught father who looked like he hadn't slept for days. A blacksmith's house. What he earned in six months wouldn't be enough to cover what Mary normally charged. But Mary was willing to lower her price, for her son's sake, until she saw the crests on some of the nearly finished shields resting against a wall.

The blacksmith did work for knights.

That was all Mary needed to know.

When Mary got home that night, she told her son he couldn't see the girl anymore.

"But will you heal her?"

"No, her father works in blades that could some day pierce us trough in our sleep!"

"That's not the reason," the boy cried. "You don't want to help her because her father can't pay you! You're greedy! A greedy, ugly old witch and I hate you!"

He meant it. As much as a nine year old can mean such things. Nothing Mary couldn't live with, though, as long as they were safe. Hate was an old acquaintance of hers, she'd know it all her life. Fear, too.

And Mary had a feeling that girl would live anyway.

II.

It seemed that when her mind had no new dreams to give her, it settled for the old ones.

Morgana dreamed about the death of her father at least two times a month. She remembered it vividly, despite not being present when it happened. More vividly than she remembered any other moment they did share together.

The mornings following that dream saw Morgana sitting at the riverbank, digging her hands trough the mud, then washing them as if to wash away the smell of blood and sweat and urine and replace it with the cleanness of the earth.

That only helped to an extent, because the dream also reminded her that that mud, that land was not her own and it smelled weird on her skin.

She was replacing unending grief with almost claustrophobic homesickness.

In every one of those early days in Camelot when she went trough her ritual, she was alone. But for one day. The last one.

"Oh no, my child. You should never pour your sorrows into the river like that. Water goes everywhere. You never know who'll get a hold of it."

Morgana didn't startle, because the voice seemed like it had always been there. But she did raise her head, only to see the the most stunning woman she'd ever laid eyes on. And the lady, unlike Morgana herself, a stranger in a strange land, looked like she belonged. _Everywhere_.

"I have no one else," Morgana confessed.

"Then we're alike," said the lady, "and I can tell you this: keep it to yourself. Let it all sink in until you're stronger from it. And wiser. Don't look for friendship and loyalty, not here. People like us are fated to lose it in the most painful ways in this land."

"You say I'll be alone, then? Die alone?"

The lady moved closer, brushed a gentle hand trough Morgana's hair and seemed to peer into Morgana's very soul.

"That's the faith of most people, I've learned. Regardless of their deeds in life."

Morgana never saw the lady again, and all that remained of her in her memory was a vision of crimson against the deep green of the forest.

III.

Igraine died and she was hunted down and away from Camelot. "Like an animal," she thought.

She left a storm in her wake that lasted two weeks. It still wasn't enough to wash away all the blood spilled in the first few days of the purge.


End file.
